MRC Press Release - The Media Research Center's 20thAnnual Awards For the Year's Worst Reporting Released Today
ALEXANDRIA, VA. -- The Media Research Center today awarded
McClatchy News Service the dis-honor of the worst Notable
Quotable of 2007, for a headline trying its best to contort good
Iraq news into bad: "As violence falls in Iraq, cemetery workers
feel the pinch" (October 16, 2007).
First Runner-Up goes to MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann in October's
Playboy magazine: "Al Qaeda really hurt us, but not as much as
Rupert Murdoch has hurt us, particularly in the case of Fox News.
Fox News is worse than Al Qaeda - worse for our society. It's as
dangerous as the Ku Klux Klan ever was."
MRC President L. Brent Bozell, III: "Another year of the media's
serial self-incrimination. Whether it is their insipid fawning over
liberals, their raging intolerance for conservatives or their own
inherent ignorance, the media in their own words have again brought
it on themselves."
The winners were selected by a panel of 52 judges, consisting of
editorial writers, columnists, radio talk show hosts and political
commentators. To read all the award-winning quotes, and take in a
great many accompanying audio and video clips, please visit
www.MRC.org.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE MRC's 2007 AWARDS:
Perky Princess Award for Katie's Cutesy Comments
"Do you worry at all that non-believers may feel excluded and diminished at a time when we're so divided about so much?"
- Katie Couric to The Nativity Story's Catherine Hardwicke and Mike Rich in a December 4, 2006 CBS Evening News story about Hollywood movies based on Biblical themes.
Blue State Brigade Award for Campaign Reporting
"So much of what you say just grabs people like me, because it sounds like Bobby Kennedy. It sounds like the '60s at its absolute best."
- Chris Matthews to Democratic Senator Barack Obama at AFSCME Democratic candidates' forum, MSNBC June 19.
Good Morning Morons Award
"So I'm running in the park on Saturday, in shorts, thinking this [warm weather] is great, but are we all gonna die? You know? I can't, I can't figure this out."
- Co-host Meredith Vieira talking about global warming on NBC's Today, January 8.
Tin Foil Hat Award for Crazy Conspiracy Theories
Co-host Joy Behar: "Is there such a thing as a man-made stroke? In other words, did someone do this to him?..."
Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck: "Why is everything coming from the liberal perspective a conspiracy?..."
Behar: "I know what this [Republican] Party is capable of."
- Discussing Democratic Senator Tim Johnson's illness on ABC's The View, December 14, 2006.
Politics of Meaninglessness Award for Silliest Analysis
"Perhaps the outpouring of sympathy for [the falsely arrested Duke lacrosse players] Reade Seligman, Collin Finnerty and David Evans is just a bit misplaced....As students of Duke University or other elite institutions, these young men will get on with their privileged lives....They are very differently situated in life from, say, the young women of the Rutgers University women's basketball team."
- Nightline co-anchor Terry Moran writing on his "Pushback" blog on ABCNews.com on April 12, the day after the North Carolina Attorney General declared the players innocent of highly-publicized rape charges.
Dynamic Duo Award for Idolizing Bill and Hillary
"When I watched him [former President Bill Clinton] at Mrs. King's funeral, I just have never seen anything like it....There are times when he sounds like Jesus in the temple."
- Chris Matthews, MSNBC's Hardball, Feb. 28.
Madness of King George Award
"You could argue that even the world's worst fascist dictators at least meant well. They honestly thought [they] were doing good things for their countries by suppressing blacks/eliminating Jews/eradicating free enterprise/repressing individual thought/killing off rivals/invading neighbors, etc....Bush set a new precedent. He came into office with the attitude of 'I'm so tired of the public good. What about my good? What about my rich friends' good?'"
- Ex-Washington Post sports reporter and Seinfeld writer Peter Mehlman in a June 20 Huffington Post blog item.
Damn Those Conservatives Award
"I'm just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live. That's a fact."
- Host Bill Maher on his HBO show Real Time, March 2, discussing how a few commenters at a left-wing blog were upset that an attempt to kill Vice President Cheney in Afghanistan had failed.
Again, for all seventy (70) Notable Quotables of 2007, many with accompanying video and audio clips, please visit www.MRC.org.
To schedule an interview with MRC President Brent Bozell or another MRC spokesperson,
please contact Tim Scheiderer (x. 126) or Colleen O'Boyle (x. 122) at (703) 683-5004.
